


Doors Close.  Doors Open.

by Annariel



Category: Urban Dead
Genre: Female Protagonist, Gen, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-01
Updated: 2011-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-26 18:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A survivor finds her way to the Fortress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doors Close.  Doors Open.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Gabby for beta-reading. Barbara's thumbs are stolen shamelessly from Fredbassett's character, Jon Lyle.

**July 2005**

Barbara Wright had a split-second image of the blood around the man's mouth and the way his lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl before the classroom door slammed in his face, separating him from her charges. The brief gust of wind died away as quickly as it had arisen.

"Who was that?" asked Jenny Sawyer. Bright kid though not an academic by any means.

Barbara hesitated over an answer while the sound of scrabbling fingers echoed through the classroom. Whatever it had been, and Barbara's instincts insisted it was an `it' not a 'who', it wasn't something she was going to be able to explain easily to GCSE history.

"I'm not sure. Everyone keep calm and no one open the door." Barbara said, imbuing her voice with as much certainty as she could. She picked up her phone and rang through to reception.

"There's more of them outside!" said Darshan Patel. He had been sitting at one of the desks by the window and now he was staring out into the grounds.

"Someone check all the windows are shut. Then everyone move away from them and try not to attract attention," Barbara said.

She eyed the shuffling forms in the school grounds warily, still listening to the ringing tone.

"I heard there was rioting in Quarlesbank last night," said Jenny but she didn't follow up on the observation with any kind of explanation for the patently inexplicable on the other side of the glass.

Barbara thumbed off the phone, clearly no one in reception was answering, and dialed a different number.

"Yes?" queried the voice at the other end, anonymous as always.

"I've got... things outside my classroom." Barbara hesitated to use the word zombies.

The figures in the playground were still shuffling around aimlessly. They looked confused and without purpose but something told Barbara they wouldn't remain that way for long.

"Can you describe them?" said the voice.

"People. Sort of. Only they are moving very slowly and don't seem to have much purpose. There's a lot of blood on them." Barbara's voice tailed away.

"Zombies," said Darshan clearly.

Barbara scowled at him and motioned him to silence.

"Pitman's made his move," said the voice.

Barbara had no response to that. She didn't even really know why she had been sent to Malton, let alone why anyone should be interested in Lord Pitman.

"What should I do?" she asked.

"Get out of there. This is too soon for us. We'll have a car waiting come to meet you at Ellicott Place Railway Station. You can't do any more good where you are. Observation's pointless now. We're pulling out."

Barbara switched off the phone. The scrabbling outside the door had stopped. She took a deep breath and stared firmly and calmly at the teenagers before her.

"OK class. Everyone pick up your chair. We are going to leave this classroom and head for the fire exit in an orderly fashion. Then each of you will head back to your home by the quickest route possible and lock yourselves in until your parents reach you. Under no circumstances will you approach any of... those." Barbara gestured through the window. "If necessary you will use your chairs to keep them at bay."

They were going to be pretty rubbish in a fight, but getting them back to their families was the best she could do.

* * *

She found the car at Ellicott Place Railway Station. It was a blue Ford Mondeo, a little battered and very low key. The driver was long gone. Barbara allowed her fingers to drift over the steering wheel, confirming that it was the right car. The driver-side window had been smashed in and there was blood on the seats. They keys had vanished. Barbara squatted on her heels inside the door, trying to keep out of sight and phoned again.

"Something has happened to my lift," she said without preamble.

"There's a quarantine order in place. You need to get out quickly. Steal a car or something."

Somewhere, not too far away there was a scream, then a groan and a quiet squelching sound.

Barbara realised she was rubbing her thumbs quietly where they itched.

"I have no idea how to steal a car. I'm going to have to walk."

She had a bad feeling she wasn't going to make it.

 **May 2011**

Barbara could hear feet shuffling just above where she lay. She'd created the hiding place some months back, a couple of loose floorboards that could be pulled up quickly and a space below that she could slip into. She liked to have somewhere to hide in a safehouse. Somewhere she could get to quickly when the barricades started to fall.

There was a murmur of groans up above her and the sound of smashing as the zombies took their frustration out on the remains of the building.

Mentally Barbara was already trying to figure out where to go next. The quiet rhythm of life in Malton was in turmoil. She'd been stuck here six years now, trapped inside the silent monoliths of the quarantine walls. After the chaos of the first couple of years things had settled into a status quo. As long as the humans kept out of a few `red' suburbs life, of a sort, could cary on. Barbara still had her phone, her lifeline to people on the outside, but they had long ceased to have anything useful to say to her.

"Barbara?" whispered Pete.

Barbara clamped a hand over his mouth. They were trapped together cheek by jowl in the enclosed space. She could smell the sweat on him. Up above she sensed the zombies tensing, aware that food was so very tantalisingly close. Silently Barbara reached out her other hand for the shotgun that lay beside her. She waited for the right moment.

Pete's breathing had become ragged. Barbara wondered if he was even aware of the way his fear congealed in the air, a trail leading directly to them. Then she was standing up, the loose floorboards falling aside. She raised the shotgun to her shoulder and fired, without even bothering to aim. The gun bucked hard against her shoulder and the smell of gunpowder briefly overwhelmed her senses, but the zombie was staggering backwards an ugly mess where its face had been.

"Window!" Barbara was already running.

"Barbara!" whined Pete.

"They know where we are. Now move if you don't want to get eaten!"

She shoved him out of the window onto the ancient fire escape outside. He was already complaining as they scrambled down.

"We were safe where we were."

"No we weren't. They knew we were there, now move!"

"They didn't."

"Did too." Barbara didn't even know why she was bothering to argue with him.

"What makes you so sure?" he asked.

Even after six years in Malton, that wasn't a question she was prepared to answer. She just shook her head and ran for the main road and away from the centre of the horde.

She ditched Pete three blocks away. "It'll be safer if we split up," she said.

His eyes widened with fear. "What about the school?" he asked.

His school, one of those projects that kept people sane in Malton. "You're not going to be teaching anyone until this horde has moved on. Just keep running and hiding. You can set up the school again later."

"You think the horde will move on?"

"Yes," Barbara said with enough certainty to make him nod and leave.

"Goodbye Barbara."

It was time to move on. The Dead were on the move in a way they hadn't been for years. She doubted it would last, but while they were tearing through Malton, ripping up everything in their path, she needed to find a group to work with.

* * *

"Name?" Fortress recruitment was, not exactly tight, but careful. Most groups just took you in if you rolled up on their doorstep, but she wanted somewhere more organised than that.

"Barbara Wright." She bit her lip. It was a dumb pseudonym, a joke she'd dreamed up when she thought she would be in Malton for just a week or two. She'd been going to take a peek at Lord Pitman and then bug out. It had seemed such a clever idea at the time.

The man simply wrote the name down, not even making a quip about Dr Who. She'd found him holed up in a ruined pub in Santlerville. There were zombies thronging the streets and every building in the suburb had been smashed through, but the main body of the horde had moved on. She'd been lucky to bump into a Fortress recruiter, or at least that was what she had told him, and maybe it had just been luck.

He was flicking through a neatly printed list. Barbara guessed someone had found an old typewriter somewhere and pressed it into use. The list was full of names and Barbara recognised some of them; well known death cultists, criminals, people who preyed upon the weak and desperate.

"OK! You're in!" the recruiter said, obviously not finding her name on the list. "Boot camp's in East Becktown. Making your way over there in one piece is your first assignment. Stay Vigilant!"

Barbara checked the ammunition in her pistol and headed for the door. She turned to look back into the darkened bar just once before she left. The recruiter had already vanished, no doubt concealing himself in the interior the building.

East Becktown wasn't such a long way to walk. Barbara had intended to find a group she could work with for a month or two, just until the crisis was pas. Working with people was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place after all. But something about the Fortress felt different.

Intuition told her that this was the beginning of something.


End file.
